Marathon week 5, some good, some to be learned from

This week will end with the most mileage I have ever run: 72 miles!

The week started with a 12 mile progression with last 6 at a little below MP. I felt awesome. Tuesday I did 10 easy without the Garmin, and felt good, but tired. I work from 7 to 3 on Tuesday, no breaks, so I do my runs in the hotness of the afternoon. As someone said to me recently, a hot run is my reward after a crazy busy non stop kind of day. Ha!

Wednesday I had a tough hill workout, 10 miles with some 5X3 min @ 5K effort on hills. Did I mention I hate hill workouts? I do about 3 miles of hills on all my easy runs, but sprinting up them for minutes is not my favorite thing. I did not carefully plan and ended up with a 400m hill, too steep, and had to add a bit of flat and slight incline after (each interval ended up being .4 miles). The pace was slow, but my legs felt the workout.

On Thursday I had 14 miles with 8 @ MP, but somehow my legs surprised me and I ended up going way below MP, and feeling great. The cool temps helped a lot, I ran @ 6am.

Friday I was exhausted, though, and ended up taking a 2 hour nap after work, and going to bed with no problem thereafter. No running, but I did some easy spinning on my bike for about 60 minutes.

All good things have to end, though.... Today's 18 miler sucked. I made the mistake of making a superfast playlist, and was unable to slow myself down during the fist miles of the run. I ran the first 11 miles @ 7:40 average, and then my legs rebelled. The suffer-fest started and I managed to complete 17 miles of the 18, allowing myself to walk the last mile sipping a can of diet pepsi. I am OK with this. The last 6 miles ended up slower, with 2 of them @ 8:10 and 8:07, but I recovered with a 7:31 as a last mile. I have been compressing my legs and will go for a swim later, in hopes of getting rid of the lactic acid. Eight easy miles tomorrow, and then another big week! I think I learned my lesson and will start the run with some slooow music, ha!

This week confirmed how much more I enjoy running mid distance fast paced, and how tough longer distance runs are for me. Hopefully this will change by the end of this training cycle, and long runs and I will become friends. For now, I am grateful for these legs.....they are doing great work for me!

Oh, and there was some biking (2 hours) and swimming (3 miles) going on. Swimming and sleeping are my 2 best recovery strategies! So far so good!

And if you want a story of inspiration, head to Mary Iron Matron and read her Lake Placid Report! Even if you are not a tri person, I guarantee you will NOT be disappointed!